Via Atrios (can’t find the link), the pathologies of the Washington pundit class in one paragraph — Richard Cohen admits he supported the war in Iraq because he thought “the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic”:

On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic. The United States had the power to change things for the better, and those who would do the changing — the fighting — were, after all, volunteers. This mattered to me.

There were legitimate reasons to support the Iraq war before the fact, but feeling better about ourselves after 9/11 is not one of them.